California Street [antikvár]

1"All right, dear," the pretty pinklipped nurse said, "now well just slip off our clothes and tumble into bed," and Jessica said, "I presume from your use of the plural, nurse, that you intend slipping out of your clothes too," and the nurse thought that was priceless. She repeated the remark to all the other nurses. It was a fine sunny morning and beyond the high hospital window the city lay sumptuous on its eleven hills and the traffic flickered over the red bridge and the silver bridge, the gulls circled over the harbor and the salt crystals splintered in the air like bullets. It was a fine sunny morning in the city of San Francisco and they came and got her out of the house she had lived in so long and wheeled her up the ramp, down the corridors and taped the intravenous feeder to her vein and turned the gadget on the door to no visitors. "Are you more comfortable now, Mrs. Saxe?" they asked and she said, "Oh, yes, I am much more comfortable," hating the nurse for no reason at all. And Dr. French came and Dr. Whatshisname, the San Diego man, and the stiff sullen little prod of the needle in her flesh because a little sedation was indicated. "Take me," she said to the shadows standing in